Psychogeography

Today our first lecture was about psychogeography. So what exactly does it mean?

"psychogeography is "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals".
Guy Debord (An introduction to a critique of urban geography, 1955).

'a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities...just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape'

The lecture really made me think about how little freedom we have as an individual in a city. We are constantly being watched everywhere we go, and it's as if we are being told where to go. Everywhere you look there are signs and maps, telling you specific ways to travel to your destination. People can see what you're doing, or CCTV is watching you, so a lot of our actions are on record where we could be watched.
 
"All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops- the geometry"
Raoul Vaneigem (SI Volume 6)

  However, we do all depend on these things everyday of our lives, and we would get lost without them. Our task was to actually try and get lost in an area. Ignore all the signs we see, road names, bus numbers, directions- don't look at them. Walk where we want to go, and explore an area the way we want to.

THE BEST WAY TO EXPLORE SOMEWHERE IS TO GET LOST.

We were given a sheet with a list of things to find on it in our teams, this was the psychogeographical treasure hunt...exciting! The list consisted of things such as: 5 statues, urban warfare, 4 outcasts, hate, an angel, last week's Headline and so on.

If was as if we had to be a 19th Century Flaneur for the day- an urban explorer who walks the city in order to observe and experience it.

"the crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and profession are to become one flash with the crowd. For the perfect flaneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the middle of the multitude, amid the edd and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite" (Baudelaire 9).

Time to get lost!